Last week, another federal judge blocked New York’s so-called “climate superfund law,” the state’s attempt to make fossil fuel companies pay for climate-related damages linked to their activities. Signed in 2024, the legislation inspired other states to start drumming up their own ways to hold Big Oil financially accountable for the costs of a warming planet.
The two rulings are certainly a blow to the law’s advocates. But they’re not a death knell for this approach. That’s according to seven lawmakers from Connecticut, Hawaiʻi, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New Hampshire, who told Grist the decisions have limited relevance to their states. Most expressed continued interest in advancing their own superfund legislation.
What may be more threatening to these kinds of pollution-accountability laws is Suncor v. Boulder County, a case the Supreme Court will hear beginning next week. Though a decision may not come until next spring, the outcome could nullify all state-level attempts to make fossil fuel companies p... Read more
